Life, culture, arts and politics in the small city, posted from Franklin, PA, Venango County. I teach at FHS, live right by the river, play in an old traditional town band, and write a weekly column for The Derrick and News-Herald (every Thursday for over ten years). For all the friends, family and former students who complain that the newspaper doesn't put the columns on line, here they are, plus whatever else comes up and a collection of links to the people and places of Venango County.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

COOL ART & T-SHIRTS, TOO

If you have been to Summer House Coffee in Franklin, you have seen the fine and interesting work of Oil City artist Thomas Shreve. His "City in Abstraction" series presents many notable landmarks in Venangoland in a new light, including several churches and that old standby, the county courthouse.These works do deal in some abstraction of the buildings, as if they've been run through a fun house mirror and doused in bright and striking oils. But the series keeps the beloved structires totally recognizable, and yet viewed in a way that makes them fresh and new. Let's face it-- the courthouse is a gorgeous and majestic building, but do we really need one more photo-realistic depiction of it?We have our share of fine artists of the region-- graphic artist Lynn Pacior-Malys and photographer John Karian come to mind. But Shreve was someone I didn't really know about.So I was particularly excited to find his stuff on line in a beautifully well-produced website that even lets you order t-shirts of his work. It's not too early to do some Christmas shopping...

PLUGS FOR MY STUFF

A Good Idea at the TimeThe second collection of about 90 columns from the News-Derrick.Venango TalesA collection of columns from the first three years of the newspaper gig.The two collections include the usual mix of politics, history, education rants, and interesting people-- same sort of stuff you find here.